


One step

by Captain_Bored



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:13:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23426800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Bored/pseuds/Captain_Bored
Summary: ‘Save me a place next to you in hell.’ He said as he left to hunt a snake.
Relationships: He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days), Jian Yi/Zhan Zhengxi (19 Days)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 57





	One step

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about this story allot and finally, I decided to write it. Maybe now I can think about something else. I am open to any and all criticism. So please complain. Enjoy

One steep can change everything. At least this one steep did.  
He Tian was annoying Jian Yi. Nothing new. So, Jian Yi starts walking faster to get rid of the nuisance. When he enters the school, he notices a group of boys coming in his direction. And he took a step to the side so he wouldn’t bump in them. The redhead at the front of the group caught his eye. He looked so mad like he was going to kill someone. He shifted his gaze fast, away from the redhead because he didn’t want the boy to see it as a threat. 

Some weeks later everyone at the school was talking about a guy called Mo Guan Shan who was getting kicked out of the school. Jian Yi and Zhan Zheng Xi asked one of He Tian’s fangirls what happened. And she told them what he did but because the name wasn’t ringing any bells, she described how this Mo Guan Shan was looking like. Jian Yi realized the guy in the story might be the same one he almost bumped in to. His presumption about the guy wasn’t so farfetched. A few days later something else happened, everyone was gossiping about something new and they all forgot about Mo Guan Shan. 

Guan Shan accepted She Li’s offer and started working for him. He didn’t care what people were saying about him the only person he cared about, and in front of which he defended himself, was his mother. She believed her son but that didn’t change the fact that she felt like she failed as a mother. For a few weeks, she didn’t visit her husband because she couldn’t muster the courage to tell him what happened. After seeing how his mother was suffering because of his misguided decision he wanted to take everything back. But he can’t change what already happened. He promised himself to be the best son he can be to his mother. He knew he will fail to keep that promise but what else can he do.

Jian Yi always had Zhan Zheng Xi and that didn’t change. The idiot disappeared for years but Zhan Zheng Xi never stopped waiting for him. And eventually, he always found his way to Zhan Zheng Xi.  
He Tian also disappeared during high school, but he was forgotten. Better said erased, like he never existed. There was no one to care or wonder where he might be. No one to come back to. His life went according to his father’s plan. A good high school, a business university abroad and then he can join the family business. He doesn’t want to live the life of a mobster, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He fought to not become like his father and brother but to no avail. He was 19 when he realized he is no different. He became no different from them. In his younger years, he wondered how his brother could change like that right in front of his eyes. But now he understands his brother better than ever. He understands how he got here and accepts his fate. He looked at the world through a thick glass and never allowed anyone close. He waited for someone to come and change his life, but no one ever came. And eventually, he turned his back to the world as if to say it was the duty of the world to give him purpose.  
Now he is twenty-seven and he wants to die by forty. It would be a waste to live more considering his life. He does business during the day, he beats up or kills people during the night, he gets drunk and he sleeps with anyone interested and there is no shortage of people to fall for his smile. 

But until he will die, he has work to do. He needs to meet up with a new business partner a guy called She Li. The man is his age, but he built an empire on his own. His father was indeed rich, and he used that money to start, but his empire is rivaling the He empire that was built in four generations. She Li’s reputation is the reason He Tian’s father chose to make him an allay and not destroy him. In the seven years, She Li had been active anything that he touches becomes gold. That is hard to achieve in the illegal world where there are no receipts, no contracts, no guarantees and no people worth trusting.  
He was as good as he was cruel and merciless. There were more rumors about how he tortures people for information and how many he killed, then about his flair for business. 

Most of the rumors about She Li were involving another person that He Tian was curious to meet. A guy called Red, She Li’s right hand. The man was a mystery some were saying he was mute, some that he is an assassin and some that he was worse than She Li himself.  
Red was next to She Li when He Tian entered the room; he didn’t say a word he just scanned the newcomers and then he leaned against the wall behind him not moving his eyes from the exchange happening in front of him. He Tian tried his best to analyze the man, but the light didn’t reach him. He looked like She Li’s shadow. His red hair was the only thing that didn’t blend in the background.  
She Li was as sly and disgusting as He Tian expected. What he didn’t saw that day, but realized later was, how dangerous he truly was. She Li sometimes seemed at the brink of madness. Mostly when he enjoyed hurting others in a sickly manner. It was different from what he or others do. They shoot a guy and let him dye. She Li takes his time making the person suffer and wish death would come faster. When he had to torture someone for information he seemed to loos all lucidity. But he got the job done, no one could hide anything from him. 

At the end of the negotiations, He Tian moves his hand to his chest to take out the cigarette pack from the interior pocket of his jacket. Before his hand had time to get there, Red’s gun was already out. Tian’s men were taken by surprise. He Tian smirks, now he understands why She Li came just with Red while he had to brink three of his men. Red was surpassing He Tian's expectations and that was a rear think. He takes slowly the pack out of his pocket and shows it to Red.  
‘Put the gun down, don’t be rude to our guests!’ says She Li in a mocking way, showing a sly smile to He Tian. 

That is how a fruitful collaboration began. The collaboration ended 5 years later with He Tian getting rid of She Li. He got greedy and he wanted even more power. He thought he can take over the He empire from inside. The only thing he got from the He family was a bullet.

In those 5 years allot happened.  
In one of his more balanced moments, She Li told Red and He Tian that all three of them went to the same middle school. That was the first time when He Tian and Red actually looked at each other. They were examining the face in front of them trying to remember something. But no memory came. That day Red gave more than monosyllabic answers which was a miracle on its own.  
‘What is your name?’  
‘Mo Guan Shan.’  
‘Don’t Close Mountain’  
‘What?’  
‘That is what your name means in English?’  
‘Don’t say.’ Said Red absent-minded  
‘You are no fun Don’t Close Mountain.’  
‘Don’t call me that! If you have nothing better to do than annoy me, come and help us load the guns!’

He Tian started laughing, besides his brother, no one dared to talk to him like that. He forgot how it feels to talk to someone that doesn’t want to do business with him or have sex with him. It felt refreshing. To everyone's surprise, he went and helped the men loading. Red made it look easy. He was moving with ease and elegance as if the boxes were empty. Soon He Tian realized it was harder than it seemed. He took his expensive coat off and opened a few buttons on his white expensive shirt. He was sweating like hell. That made Red laugh. 

One year after the collaboration began Mo Guan Shan’s mom died. All the money he made was used for doctors and hospitals. She had the best doctors’ money can buy but life can’t be bought. After her death, his life was so much emptier. He was leaving in a huge empty apartment; he had an empty heart and an empty life. The only consolation he had was that he made his mother proud. She believed him to be a businessman. That is how he explained the huge amounts of money he made. It was all fake but for her it was real, and it made her stop blaming herself for her son’s bad decisions.  
In the beginning, he worked at a bar belonging to She Li’s parents. He was hopeful. He had a plan to work there at night and go to a cooking school during the day and turn his life around. But life had other plans. Because he needed more money, he got involved in the underground business She Li did. And soon enough he was caught in that world with no chance of going out. When he closes his eyes, he remembers the horrible things he did. How it felt to kill for the first time, how the gun felt out of place in his hand, how he learned how to correctly fight by doing underground fights, how it felt to get rid of a body, how She Li trained him to be his monkey, how he felt when he ignored a woman’s cries for help and many more. All for nothing. A wasted life. He hated his life, his decisions, She Li and he hated himself more than anything. He had to go on knowing all too well that death was the only thing that will free him from this life.  
Because She Li was fighting only one on one, he was sending Red to take care of the fights with his enemies. So Red and He Tian ended up fighting on the same side, watching each other’s back. They saved each other too many times to remember. They both found fighting liberating. They were thinking only about how to survive no time to feel guilty about youths’ mistakes, family, life or death. They barely spoke through the years, but they bound through fighting. They knew what each other’s forte and week point was, preferred fighting style and weapons.  
He Tian was liking Red more and more. But he was keeping his distance from the people he was working with. He liked teasing Red, but he would never try anything. You don’t annoy the man that saves your ass in a fight.

Two weeks before She Li died, on a Friday night when He Tian was having fun with a woman, he got a call. Some of their people were ambushed, and his brother was shot. His life wasn’t in danger, but he needed to see a doctor and He Tian needed to figure out who did that and go after them.  
He Tian was looking around the street where everything happened for ten minutes already, but he couldn’t figure out which of there enemies did this. Looking around he notices something hidden in the entrance of a building. He gets close and he realizes it was a someone, not a something. The man was dead for some time, he couldn’t see the face of that man and he didn’t need to. Red hair was mixing with red blood on the wall. In his hand, there was a small picture of a woman. She had the same hair color as him; probably his mom. He Tian looked at him for a second then he leaned his shoulder on the wall and took a cigarette out and lit it. ‘I wonder if life would have been different if you and I would have been friends in middle school’ crossed his mind but before he could think further his finger got burned by the cigarette. Without him noticing he was lost in his mind for some time. He put it out and looked one last time at the dead man.  
‘Save me a place next to you in hell.’ He said as he left to hunt a snake.


End file.
